A headline in the Guardian, the daily paper that seems to address a fairly well-read, internationalist, and left-leaning public and moreover doesn’t operate behind a paywall, today seemed to encapsulate its style, its readership, and its personality. Until further notice, we have reached peak Grauniad.

“I Deeply Regret Riding an Elephant on Holiday” by Chris Packham tells you, first, that he has the sort of money that enables you to go to exotic places where you might ride elephants; and moreover, that he’s the sort of conscientious dude who feels bad about it afterward. The subtitle goes on: “This Year, We Should All Make the Ethical Choice,” elevates his regret into exemplary preaching to “all” of us who might be similarly well-heeled and similarly tempted. You feel better about yourself just reading the headline. Why, I, too, might be in the position of go on the sort of holiday where I might meaningfully refuse to ride an elephant! In fact, I’m refusing to ride an elephant right now, sitting in my back yard in Chicago! What a good person I must be!

The author spares no effort to reassure us of his “ethical” qualities. He was confronted with the dilemma– ride the elephant or not?– because he was taking his “stepdaughter Megan, who was only a child” to see tigers somewhere in Africa or Asia, and elephant-back was the only way to do it. Points for being such an exemplary stepdad! Making a kid happy is generally blameless. Thus the ethically suspect ride was a means to a noble end, forced on them by circumstance. So you should be ok, Chris! Exempt. Nothing to declare. In the category of excusemanship, you rule.

Further points rain on our author for pausing to explain the exploitation of animals to young Megan and taking the elephants’ agency seriously to the extent of “visit[ing] the place they were kept, rather than just jump[ing] on them at the side of the road.” Well yes. One doesn’t just “jump on” an elephant– or anybody else. “The fact of the matter is that those elephants were probably working exclusively for our gratification – and that is not OK.” But do you have proof that they were ill-treated, or does abuse just go with being an elephant in that unnamed country that you chose to visit? Is an elephant working as a tiger observation platform necessarily worse off than an elephant who hauls lumber or builds roads? If the only place for an elephant is a wildlife reserve, did Mr. Packham go round to interview the farmers who live next to wildlife reserves and might have feelings about the role of animal tourism in enabling other kinds of exploitation?

It is terribly hard to be a 100% harmless person in a world of many people and organisms with clashing priorities. But it is awfully easy to brag about being a lucky-yet-virtuous person and to pose as an ethical model and authority, especially before the morally-aspirational clientèle of that paper, whose regular reader I am, but often with a cringe.